Frustrated by a lack of informed and honest review websites covering a wide range of electronic music, I write them myself.

Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Galaktlan - Sinine Platoo

Kohvirecords/Carpe Sonum Records: 2002/2015

Carpe Sonum Records does reissues too? Wait, of course they do. I already reviewed one of them, Gabriel Le Mar’s Stripped - though that was but a two-year gap between digital-street date and spiffy CD re-up. And despite finishing the album way back in the yesteryears, I can’t really call Si Matthews’ Tales Of Ten Worlds a reissue either, since it never saw an actual release until Carpe Sonum tapped it. There could be more concrete examples I’m missing – I’ve only started scratching the surface of this label’s brief catalog – but I’m hard pressed to come up with a better one than Galaktlan’s Sinine Platoo. This came out way back in ye’ olde age of 2002, on the hopelessly obscure Estonian print Kohvirecords. Galaktlan was one of that label’s primary producers, though that’s not saying much. Kohvirecords released a scant twenty items over the course of a decade, featuring the likes of Uni, Barbariz, Pastacas, and Paf - names on the tips of everyone’s tongue, I’m sure.

Galaktlan was probably the most prolific of the old Kohvi’ roster. Born Taavi Laatsit, he made his debut on that label as Vonsuck, formed the group Uni with Hendrik Luuk, hooked up with Aivar Tõnso as Kulgurid, teamed up with a few more Estonians as Kismabande, and eventually found another home with SekSound. Not sure how he got roped into the Carpe Sonum continuum for a reissue for his debut Galaktlan record. Like, he wasn’t even included with that mega-ultra super-deluxe Pete Namlook tribute box set Die Welt Ist Klang! Someone at the Carpe Sonum office must have been a fan, eager to expose the (slightly larger) world of contemporary ambient techno to what the great nation of Estonia was up to in this scene many moons ago.

Some interesting things for sure, if Sinine Platoo is anything to go by. Not revolutionary or groundbreaking by any stretch, but interesting. At first I was hit with a sense of Gas 0095déjà-vu, the first couple tracks vibing a similar scientific-music aesthetic Mat Jarvis utilized. Heck, Sulase Surm could have fit quite snuggly in that album alone. Follow-up tracks -15, Mina Kaheks and Videoton are closer in tone to the O.G. ambient techno stylee Aphex Twin spearheaded, but feature such small, skittering rhythms, I still can’t shake that Microcopics feel. Please don’t tell me folks would try labeling this as ‘glitch’ nowadays. It’s ‘micro’, yo’!

Some tracks go for a funkier, bouncy rhythm (40 000 Lampi, Klavestra), others more abrasive compared Galaktlan’s typical electro beatcraft (-15, Veneetsia). These are miniscule differences though, such that you’ll hardly notice it without paying studious attention to them – which you likely will, considering the minimalist vibes we get here. This reissue also sees a couple bonus tracks, including an even older track Num, a clicky electro thing Mille Plateaux sorts would like. Then there’s Sulase Surm Repriis, a minute-long piano piece from the way-future year of 2013. Huh, don’t get how that ties into Sinine Platoo at all.